Piracy: Sports leagues' biggest problem?

Stewart Pond, 12, of Scripps Ranch lobbies for an end to stalemated TV talks that have kept many fans from watching televised games this season at the "Padres To The People" rally outside Petco Park on Sunday, July 22, 2012.
— Howard Lipin

Stewart Pond, 12, of Scripps Ranch lobbies for an end to stalemated TV talks that have kept many fans from watching televised games this season at the "Padres To The People" rally outside Petco Park on Sunday, July 22, 2012.
— Howard Lipin

Soccer is the most pirated sport globally, with England’s popular Premier League at the top of that list. After years of playing the DMCA takedown game with little success, it convinced England’s version of the Supreme Court to tilt the field. In August, the High Court ordered the country’s leading Internet service providers (ISPs) to block Thefirstrow.eu, a Swedish-based site that links to streams of live games from the Premier League and pretty much any other sport in pretty much every other country.

So why not just do that in the United States?

That was the idea behind the controversial SOPA (Stop Online Piracy Act) legislation introduced in October 2011 by Rep. Lamar Smith, the same Congressman from Texas who presided over the 2009 hearing on illegal live sports streams. SOPA included, among other things, a provision allowing the Dept. of Justice to order ISPs to block infringing websites.

But the idea of sweeping government censorship of the Internet didn’t play well in a country where the First Amendment to the Constitution guarantees freedom of speech. On Jan. 18, 2011, Wikipedia and several major websites staged an unprecedented “blackout,” replacing articles with the message: “Imagine a world without free knowledge.” Within days, SOPA was DOA.

That leaves sports leagues and broadcast companies with dwindling options. They can push for tougher laws in an unreceptive climate, as nearly $1 million in UFC lobbying over the past two years attests. They can try to convince online advertising companies, the lifeblood of the pirates, to steer clear of such unsavory waters. They can increase educational efforts about the evils of piracy.

They also could sue the guy clicking on a pirated stream, as UFC threatened to do after it claimed to obtain user data from a site called Greenfeedz.com. But there are conflicting legal opinions on whether it would even stick, along with the inconvenient truth that you’d be suing your own fans – which might be why UFC, after much bluster in 2012, has apparently let it drop.

Then there’s what the music industry did when it waved the white flag at the digital pirates: provide legal access to their content on the web at a discounted rate.

“It becomes a kind of price discrimination measure,” says Lemley, the Stanford Law School professor. “While the logical thing to think is, ‘It’s available for free, no one’s going to pay for it,’ it turns out a surprising number of people will pay for it in the music and movie business.

“An interesting question is whether the sports leagues will learn that lesson, that people want a cheap product online, and provide that for them.”

Major League Baseball began streaming games on the Internet in 2002, a good five years before online piracy was an identifiable problem. It continues to distribute more content on more platforms than anyone else.

Does it deter piracy?

“Yes, without question,” MLB’s Mellis says. “Does it erase the problem? I don’t think it does.”